The musings of an ordinary sort of God-bothering curate and educator from Yorkshire, God's own country.
Sometimes I think I am in a parallel universe as I ponder why some Christians seem so wilfully theologically illiterate.

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." Philippians 4.19

"Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Philippians 2.12

Friday, August 3, 2012

Book Review: The Sword of the Templars by Paul Christopher

“Just a book review,” Ms. Raby said at the end of term. "It will encourage literacy if the kids see that we read for pleasure."

Just a book review?

“Didn’t your friend Nikki at work suggest you read some Tolstoy?”
My wife ventured. I knew where this was going. “Only you can’t review the usual
sort of dross you read.”

Why not?

“Because you only read books where the blurb includes the
words: hidden archive, relic, lost artefact, Templars, archaeological dig,
international plot, secret brotherhood, quest and hidden wealth.”

How well she knows me.

“Anyway, I thought you were going to read the collected
works of James Joyce.”

You don’t tend to find
them in Oxfam Books and when I did get a look at the first page of Ulysses, reading
the complete works of James Joyce seemed marginally less appealing than reading
the complete works of Barbara Cartland.

So, notwithstanding my wife’s cynicism, I bring you The Sword of the Templars by Paul
Christopher, published by Penguin.

A dark mystery
spanning the past ….

A covert war raging
in the present ….

An ancient enemy, hell
bent on hiding the truth that would rock the very foundations of the world …

Come on. What’s not to like?

Retired army ranger John “Doc” Holliday is the key
protagonist. Recently working as lecturer of military history at West Point (now
there’s a job I fancy), Doc is left his uncle’s estate which, as he explores it,
turns out to include a hidden Templar sword wrapped in Hitler’s own personal
battle standard.

I know, me too.

The action starts in America and
moves swiftly to Canada, Britain, Ireland, Switzerland, Italy, Israel, and the
Azores. An awful lot of people get killed – by my reckoning about 130, although
an awful lot of those were a secret brotherhood of Libyan fanatics and as none
of them were given names, I don’t think they really count. Amongst the other fatalities
are a double crossing Catholic Priest (boo, hiss) shot by a Mossad agent in down-town
Jerusalem and a noble ex-monk (ahh!) who reveals the secret to Doc as he chokes
his last on his own blood.

Doc and Peggy (did I mention
Peggy, Doc’s niece? – she had a combination of good looks and flashing,
energetic personality thatdrew men to
her like a magnet) and Raffi Wanounou, the Israeli archaeologist ( a starkly
handsome man in his late forties) … do keep up … are chased from pillar to post
trying to unravel the mystery of the knotted gold wire in the hilt of the
sword, and, amazingly have enough cash-in-hand to undertake expensive, and
sometimes dangerous undercover travel and pay for accommodation bills for hotel
rooms they invariably end up fleeing from and leaving knee deep in gore.

Somewhere in all this it becomes
clear that Axel Kellerman (tall, blond, athletic, sharp jawed and with an
aristocratic nose, full mouthed lips and high cheekbones) son of WWII SS
Gruppenfȕhrer
General Lutz Kellerman (ask Miss Williams, she teaches History) and also a secret Neo-Nazi and
certifiable mad-man, is their chief foe.

I’ve forgotten exactly why, but
then a lot more people are killed so I was distracted.

Anyway, by the end of the book I’m
not much the wiser but remain intrigued by how easy it is to cross a variety of
international borders with little or no money and only American English and
Hebrew to help you. I’m still a little unclear why it was necessary to be
smuggled into Gadhafi’s Libya but there you go.

No hold on … that’s the sequel. To
my horror, on finishing the book I discover I have to read on in The Templar Cross where Peggy is
kidnapped by the Brotherhood of the Temple of Isis which leads Doc and Raffi
into a quest into deepest Africa, taking in France and some other places along
the way. A lot of people try to kill Doc but he seems wise to them as an
ex-military man because none of the killers wear their West Point graduation
rings on the correct hand.

That old trick? Really?

It is at this point that I
discover that Doc only has one eye and wears an eye patch over the other – a piece
of grit thrown up on a road in Afghanistan. I am left wondering why it took me until halfway through the second book to pick this up. There is a strong chance I've not been concentrating.

There’s something about WWII gold,
extracted from the teeth of Tunisian Jews, having been lost in a desert plane
crash and an interesting line in Czech assassins who use plastic hat-pins –
because they don’t show up in airport metal detectors, obviously: do think for
yourselves – to stab unsuspecting library archivists through the ear.

I shall make a point of watching
out for that.

Anyway Tidyman has his throat cut
on the Orient Express, which is a shame as he was a baddie-turned-goodie,
although I don’t think his enigmatic Canadian/Egyptian past was sufficiently
well explored, rendering him as something of a two-dimensional character and
the gold remained hidden in the Pharaoh Imhotep’s tomb in Libya for Doc to
retrieve later.

Did I mention that the mad neo-Nazi,
Axel Kellerman, (tall, blond, athletic, sharp jawed and with an aristocratic
nose, full mouthed lips and high cheekbones) son of WWII SS Gruppenfȕhrer
General Lutz Kellerman, had died running into Doc’s Templar sword? No? I don’t
suppose it would have helped much at this stage as it happened at the end of
the first book.

Anyway Peggy marries Raffi once he
recovered from having been badly beaten up by a bald psychopath Priest called
Father Domato who is a member of the Vatican’s secret police.

No, me neither, but that’s O.K.
because Doc later shoots him in a fishing shed outside Rome.

Strangely by the end of this book
I have completely lost the plot - sometime after Paul Christopher I suspect,
but all is not lost because it turns out that this is a trilogy.

How I laughed!

And, as luck would have it, The Templar Throne was to hand.

Peggy (now pregnant) and Raffi are
largely left out of this book until, inevitably, they are kidnapped in the penultimate
chapter (that girl should never go shopping) by an organisation called Rex Deus
made up of American descendants of the
brothers and sisters of Jesus who, therefore, share the Royal Bloodline via the
Merovingian kings. Their matriarch, Kate Sinclaire (a brittle, hatchet faced
woman, prone to chain-smoking but always immaculately and expensively turned
out) is the mother of Republican presidential hopeful Richard Pierce Sinclaire
who she hopes to manipulate into the presidency by virtue of Rex Deus’s
fabulous wealth, which is the Templar wealth reinvested after they were all
unfortunately tortured to death or burnt at the stake in 14-something-or-other
because of Pope Urban and some French king.

This leaves Doc with no travelling
companion until he meets up with American nun – or is she? - Sister Meg (in her
late 30s, grey-green eyes, red headed and prone to blushing) at Mont Saint-Michel.
The action moves to Prague … not quite sure why … where there is an amusing
interlude in the ancient Jewish cemetery as Doc and Meg shake off a tail in the
shape of a fat, bald private detective. Did I say amusing? I lied.

They also escape from British
Special Forces – or are they? - at Mount St. Michael by avoiding abseiling
soldiers and hopping onto the passing boat of a young Irish fisherman – or is
he? “Aw and well, it’s just a culchie from Cork City that I am and all.”

A couple of folk get shot on Holy
Island and Doc and Meg escape by the skin of their teeth which is good, but a
shame for the Vicar who had invited them for a meal of haggis and sausages: it’s
just not polite to be a no-show without at least texting.

Somehow they end up in Canada
where an awful lot of paramilitary guys get shot-up at the lakeside safe-house.

Forgot to mention that this is to
do with a quest for the True Ark (a wooden box containing the Holy Grail, the
Crown of Thorns, the Holy Shroud and the Ring of Christ) which Meg believes was
smuggled to The New World by a surviving Templar called Saint Clair and the
Blessed Juliana, niece to Princess Agnes of Bohemia (died 1282). This is where
I really had to suspend my disbelief. After all, Jesus wearing a ring? As if.

Anyway, Meg turns out to be the
daughter of Kate Sinclaire and only an ex-nun which I was quite pleased to
discover as she tries more than once to seduce Doc. “It doesn’t have to be like
this you know.” Very un-nunly!

I don’t suppose you spotted the
subtle link between Saint Clair and Sinclaire did you? It took me a while to
spot that one.

Anyway, just as Doc is about to be
forced to authenticate the True Ark, which they had finally found, but only
because Meg had planted it there already – cunning vixen that that she is – on a
sandbank off the coast of Nova Scotia, the Israeli secret service arrive and
rescue Doc having been tipped off by Vatican security. No, really. I wondered
what Homeland Security would have to say about that what with this taking place
on American soil but, hey, I’m no expert on international politics and I’m sure
Paul Christopher did his research thoroughly.

You can imagine my joy when I
discover that Kate Sinclaire has instructed that Operation Ironstone be
instituted because, and yes, you’ve guessed it, there is a fourth book, due out
July 2012, called The Templar Conspiracy
where the Pope is assassinated in order for Rex Deus’s plans to reach
fulfilment and save America from liberal socialism.

It’s not out in paperback yet, but
it’s my Birthday early in October and I must now how it ends!

“God has called you for who you are. He wants you as you are for your uniqueness. Do not let others change you" (Archbishop Desmond Tutu to me, Sat 7th November 2009)

Blog Etiquet

This is to be a safe place for people to share ideas and views and to let off steam. It is to be a network for those with a similar world view, but others are welcome to comment subject to the following: I ask visitors to respect me and other visitors; not to hijack this blog for your own agenda; not to use its content to make mischief for me or any visitors: not to rant too much, that is my prerogative and to comment with a name, not as anon.

When I comment on religious matters, it is important that you understand that these are my views and do not necessarily represent the view of any denomination.

When I comment on educational matters and school life, all names have been changed to protect the "innocent."

If you are not as keen to hear the alternative perspectives of others as you are to assert your own, this may not be the blog for you.

About Me

Sir is a Curate, a former Doorman and former Religious Studies teacher. ("It's rubbish this Sir!"). He is a returner to Anglicanism following a period in the wilderness elsewhere. He sings with the Leeds Philharmonic Society - a choir with an international reputation. He would describe himself as being part of the Christian Left.